Aggressor Quotes & Sayings

The time when a nation most craves ease may be the moment when it can least afford to let down its guard. The moment when it most wishes it could address its domestic needs may be the moment when it most urgently has to confront an external threat. The nation that survives is the one that rises to meet that moment: that has the wisdom to recognize the threat and the will to turn it back, and that does so before it is too late. The naive notion that we can preserve freedom by exuding goodwill is not only silly, but dangerous. The more adherents it wins, the more it tempts the aggressor. — Richard M. Nixon

Where one, without fault is placed under circumstances sufficient to excite the fears of it reasonable man that another designs to commit it felony, or some great bodily injury upon him, and to afford grounds for reasonable belief that there is imminent clanger of the accomplishment of his design, lie may, acting under these fears alone, slay his assailant and be justified by the appearances. And as where the attack is sudden and the danger inuninent, lie may increase his peril by retreat; so situated, he may stand his ground ... and .slay his aggressor, even if it he proved lie might more easily have gained by Jli~rht. — Richard Maxwell Brown

The demagogic propagandist must therefore be consistently dogmatic. All his statements are made without qualification. There are no grays in his picture of the world; everything is either diabolically black or celestially white. In Hitler's words, the propagandist should adopt "a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with." He must never admit that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of view might be even partially right. Opponents should not be argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down, or, if they become too much of a nuisance, liquidated. The morally squeamish intellectual may be shocked by this kind of thing. But the masses are always convinced that "right is on the side of the active aggressor. — Aldous Huxley

Libertarianism is the simple morality we learned as children: Don't strike first, don't steal or cheat, keep your promises. If you inadvertently fail to live up to these standards, make it up to the person you've harmed. If someone harms you, you may defend yourself as needed to stop the aggressor and obtain reparations. This simple morality works group-to-group just as it works one-to-one to bring about a peaceful and prosperous world. — Mary Ruwart

Years ago she had discovered that she could control her relationships with heterosexual men far better by playing the sexy siren than the blushing ingenue. Being the sexual aggressor put her subtly in charge. She was the one who defined the rules of the game instead of the man, and when she sent her suitor on his way, he assumed it was because he didn't measure up to all the other men in her life. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

What the American people want to do is fight a war without getting hurt. You can't do that any more than you can get into a barroom fight without getting hurt ... Unless the American people are willing to send their sons out to fight an aggressor, there just isn't going to be any United States. — Chesty Puller

According to the teachings of Islam, war is to be waged not against the enemy but against the aggressor. (p. 49) — Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Most of my fights, I push the pace. I'm the aggressor. — Clay Guida

In my experience of fights and fighting, it is invariably the aggressor who keeps getting everything wrong. — Martin Amis

It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive. — Jawaharlal Nehru

Allah is on our side. That is why we will beat the aggressor. — Saddam Hussein

two A-4 Skyhawks from VFC-13's aggressor squadron to taxi by. He swallowed — Dan Zimberoff

Wars are not caused by the buildup of weapons. They are caused when an aggressor believes he can achieve his objectives at an acceptable price. — Margaret Thatcher

The nature of a panther is that he never attacks. But if anyone attacks or backs into a corner, the panther comes up to wipe that aggressor or that attacker out. — Huey Newton

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough to convince any potential aggressor that war could bring no benefit, only disaster. — Ronald Reagan

War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said.
"Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?"
"Absol - well, okay."
"Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?"
"All right, I'll grant you that, but - "
"Saving civilization from a horde of - "
"It doesn't do any good in the long run is what I'm saying, Nobby, if you'd listen for five seconds together," said Fred Colon sharply.
"Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge? — Terry Pratchett

During a news conference aboard a plane on his way home from Seoul on Monday, Francis was asked: "Do you approve [of] the American bombing?" The question was set up with a comment that the United States is "bombing the terrorists in Iraq, to prevent a genocide, to protect minorities, including Catholics." Francis avoided addressing details of the Iraq conflict, instead going into a more general discussion of Catholic theory and teaching on war. "In these cases where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say this: It is licit to stop the unjust aggressor. I underline the verb: stop. I do not say bomb, make war, I say stop by some means. With what means can they be stopped? These have to be evaluated. To stop the unjust aggressor is licit," he said, according to a transcript by America magazine. — Anonymous

We have helped to organize the United Nations. We believe it will stop aggressor nations from starting wars. Because we believe it, we intend to support the United Nations organization with all the power and resources we possess. — James F. Byrnes

In no other type of warfare does the advantage lie so heavily with the aggressor. — James Franck

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called ... it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you ... When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces ... — Douglas MacArthur

For almost one hundred years, leaders of the white South managed to freeze race relations and racial ideology in something close to the Confederate pattern, thus demonstrating that the passage of time by itself does not erase a conflicted past. Elite southern men and women created an ideology of the Lost Cause that wrapped antebellum society, the Confederacy, Reconstruction, and postwar racism in the mantle of a protective, laudatory myth. The Lost Cause portrayed the white South as cultured, chivalrous, and superior while making the North into the aggressor - crude, unprincipled, and vindictive.

[...] Even after 1900 the Lost Cause ideology continued to gain strength under the leadership of a new generation, until most southern whites came to believe that their history and the myth were identical [75 - 76]. — Paul D. Escott

An aggressor nation or extremist group could gain control of critical switches and derail passenger trains, or trains loaded with lethal chemicals. — Leon Panetta

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. — Elie Wiesel

Appeasement only makes the aggressor more aggressive. — Dean Rusk

Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one's life, one's goods or one's physical integrity; sometimes, even 'til the aggressor's death ... In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one's life or one's goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim. — Thomas Aquinas

We don't call war hell because it is fought without restraint. It is more nearly right to say that, when certain restraints are passed, the hellishness of war drives us to break with every remaining restraint in order to win. Here is the ultimate tyranny: those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor. — Michael Walzer

They jumped on us. They were the aggressor. They had us on our heels from the beginning. — LeBron James

We each have a story. They did this to us. There was no outside aggressor. They wanted an Apocalypse. They wanted the end. And they made it happen. It was orchestrated - who got in, who didn't. There was a master list. We weren't on it. We were left here to die. They want to erase us, the past, but we can't let them. — Julianna Baggott

In that wide struggle which we call Progress, evil is always the aggressor and the vanquished, and it is right that this should be so, for without its onslaughts and depredations humanity might fall to a fat slumber upon its cornsacks and die snoring. — James Stephens

The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. — Ronald Reagan

As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state - to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally selfevident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. — Herbert Spencer

Against naked force the only possible defense is naked force. The aggressor makes the rules for such a war; the defenders have no alternative but matching destruction with more destruction, slaughter with greater slaughter. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

To kill wasn't the same as murder, because killing was done to protect oneself or those who were innocent- or, in war, to deny the aggressor the fruits of his onslaught and to preserve the kind of civilization that valued life and freedom above ideology, above even peace and justice, two words easily and routinely perverted by most authoritarians. — Dean Koontz

The meaning of these lines is anything but passive for it suggests that evil can be made absurd through excess; it suggests rendering evil absurd through dwarfing its demands with the volume of your compliance, which devalues the harm. This sort of thing puts a victim into a very active position, into the position of a mental aggressor. The victory that is possible here is not a moral but an existential one. — Joseph Brodsky

Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable - that is, human - men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life. — Alan W. Watts

All War Departments are now Defense Departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side. — George Wald

Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it! — Erich Maria Remarque

Libertarians regard the state as the Supreme, the eternal, the best organized aggressor against the persons and property of the mass of the public. All states everywhere, whether democratic, dictatorial, or monarchical, whether red, white, blue or brown. — Murray Rothbard

No matter what Germany or Germans did, it was because they were defending themselves from international Jewry. The Jews were always the aggressor, the Germans always the victims. — Timothy Snyder

And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to not take it any more. To not cow down, anymore. To let my father know, the tyrant, the aggressor, that if he hits me, I'm going to hit back, and hard. — T. Scott McLeod

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched. — Ida B. Wells

Fight back! Whenever you are offered violence, fight back! The aggressor does not fear the law, so he must be taught to fear you. Whatever the risk, and at whatever the cost, fight back! — Jeff Cooper

The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines. — John T. Flynn

I certainly felt I had an idea of World War II, and it's probably the idea that many people share: there was this insane aggressor, and there was really only one way to proceed in resisting him. What I didn't realize is that there were many voices belonging to reasonable, interesting, complicated people who had a different way of interpreting the possible responses to the Hitlerian menace. — Nicholson Baker

This makes it Lawful for a Man to Kill a Thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther then by the use of Force, so to get him in his Power, as to take away his Money, or what he pleases from him.: because using force, where he has no Right, to get me into his Power, let his pretense be what it will, I have no reason to purpose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is Lawful for me to treat him, as one who has put himself into a State of War with me, I.e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a State of War, and is Aggressor in it. — John Locke

In 'The King's Speech,' patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time. — Tom Hooper

Undertaking initially to protect its citizens against aggression, [government] has often itself become ... a far greater aggressor. — John Hospers

Interchangeable ever were the terms of abuse with which the aggressor discredits those about to be ravaged! — Malcolm Lowry

Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see. — Enoch

The warehouse cat was always the aggressor, while the attic cat was ultimately the victor, just as in politics. — Anne Frank

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor. — Marcus Aurelius

Forgiveness was work, Eduardo told victims' families
but so, then, was love, and deciding what was right, and defending it. Recusing yourself from judgment so you won't be tainted by the aggressor's sin is the same as turning away from empathy so you won't be touched by the victim's pain. — Jennifer DuBois

I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet. — Dominic Monaghan

As regards pacifism, the belief that it is always wrong to kill a human being, again, anyone is free to hold this position, as immoral as it may be. And what other word than "immoral" can one use to describe forbidding the killing of someone who is in the process of murdering innocent men, women, and children, in, let's say, a movie theater or a school? But it is dishonest to cite the commandment against murder to justify pacifism. There is moral killing - most obviously when done in self-defense against an aggressor - and there is immoral killing. And the word for that is murder. — Dennis Prager

He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man ... or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy. — Benjamin Tucker

This isn't about love and hate, Helen says. It's about control. People don't sit down and read a poem to kill their child. They just want the child to
sleep. They just want to dominate. No matter how much you love someone, you still want to have your own way. The masochist bullies the sadist into
action. The most passive person is actually an aggressor. — Chuck Palahniuk

The lesson of all history warns us that we should negotiate only when our military superiority is so convincing that we can achieve our objective at the conference table, and deny the aggressor theirs. — Richard M. Nixon

No Big Power in all history ever thought of itself as an aggressor. That is still true today. — A.J. Muste

And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars
all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose
there is no such war in the history of the race. — Mark Twain

To those who don't know the historical truth, I would like to say today, Poland was not an aggressor but a victim during the Second World War. — Ewa Kopacz

Being tolerant does not mean acquiescing to the intolerable; it does not mean covering up disrespect; it does not mean coddling the aggressor or disguising aggression. Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different. — Paulo Freire

No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory. — Murray Rothbard

Lord Emsworth was a man with little of the aggressor in his spiritual make-up. He believed in living and letting live. Except for his sister Constance, his secretary Lavender Briggs, the Duke of Dunstable and his younger son Frederick, now fortunately residing in America, few things were able to ruffle him. Placid is the word that springs to the lips. But the Church Lads had pierced his armour, and he found resentment growing within him like some shrub that has been treated with a patent fertilizer. He brooded bleakly on the injuries he had suffered at the hands of these juvenile delinquents. The — P.G. Wodehouse

The hand of the aggressor is stayed by strength-and strength alone. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not color his crime with the pretext of justice. — Voltaire

Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. — Brent Scowcroft

He did not see the huge armies but the world divided into two opposites camps: the right and the wrong, the good and the evil, the aggressor and the defender, the unrighteous and the righteous, the arrogant and the humble. It is not the people who are inclined to fight against each other but the men who lead them. Humanity as a rule wants to relate with each other and wars are an exception to this rule. — Aporva Kala

In these cases, where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor, ... I underscore the verb 'stop.' I'm not saying 'bomb' or 'make war,' just 'stop.' And the means that can be used to stop them must be evaluated. — Pope Francis

The aggressor too should know that the preemptive use of nuclear weapons would not insure victory. With modern detection systems and the combat readiness of the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear forces, the United States would not be able to deal a crippling blow to the socialist countries. The aggressor will not be able to evade an all-crushing retaliatory strike. — Dmitriy Ustinov

The firm has two cats, one for the warehouse and one for the attic. Now it occasionally happen that the two cats met; and the result was always a terrific fight. The aggressor was always the warehouse cat yet it was always the attic cat who managed to win - just like among nations. — Anne Frank

So great are the psychological restistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier. — Harold Lasswell

Whoever uses force without Right ... puts himself into a state of War with those, against whom he uses it, and in that state all former Ties are canceled, all other Rights cease, and every one has a Right to defend himself, and to resist the Aggressor. — John Locke

When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

There is no shame in being a survivor of sexual violence. The shame is on the aggressor. — Angelina Jolie

Our arms must be mighty ... ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction — Dwight D. Eisenhower

For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is some other form that you contain within yourself that is not will or purpose and, when applied to art, serves you best. If you systematically apply to the art that you create the aggression of the world that turned you towards art in the first place; if you, in turn, become the aggressor towards your canvas, the thing that you're doing; if you, in turn, work your will upon this thing that you want - you will then cause a dissatisfaction in this life that you create. — Milton Resnick

Israel cannot afford to stand against the entire world and be denounced as the aggressor. — Moshe Dayan

If we were not pushing, fighting, claiming what is ours and challenging what is not yet ours, others would be doing it to us. It is the way of the world. You can be the aggressor, you can fight against crusaders on their own land, or you can stay at home and wait for them to come to you. And they would come. They would come with fire, with disease, with swords and blood and death. Weakness is an irresistible lure. — Kiersten White

The principle of avoiding conflict and never opposing an aggressor's strength head-on is the essence of aikido. We apply the same principle to problems that arise in life. The skilled aikidoist is as elusive as the truth of Zen; he makes himself into a koan - a puzzle which slips away the more one tries to solve it. He is like water in that he falls through the fingers of those who try to clutch him. Water does not hesitate before it yields, for the moment the fingers begin to close it moves away, not of its own strength, but by using the pressure applied to it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that one of the symbols for aikido is water. — Joe Hyams

For everybody has a natural right to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth. — Lysander Spooner

History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor. — Mahmoud Darwish

This trial is a farce. The real prosecutor is not the state of Finland, but the government of one great power. The real defendants are not the persons who were picked on political grounds and now stand accused here. The real defendant is the Finnish people. The purpose of this trial is not to mete out maximum sentences on those accused, but for a Finnish court to declare that Finland was the aggressor in the war and that the Soviet Union was a peace-loving, wronged victim of an unjustified aggression. [Final statement during Soviet dictated "War-responsibility" mock trial, 1945] — Risto Ryti

I believe that we now have a duty to remove the aggressor from our land and to regain the Arab territory occupied by the Israelis. We can then engage in a clandestine struggle to liberate the land of Palestine, to liberate Haifa and Jaffa. — Gamal Abdel Nasser

When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operations, it is sound military strategy to take the flight to the enemy. — Timothy McVeigh

But to cut off relations with an aggressor may often invite retaliation by armed action, and this would, in its turn, make necessary some form of collective self-defence by the loyal members of the League. — Arthur Henderson

I will be harsh and stern against the aggressor, but I will be a pillar of strength for the weak.I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak, I will put my cheek on the ground. — Umar

With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary. — Howard Zinn

Soviet rocket troops possess enough equipment to be able, if need be, to sweep any aggressor from the face of the earth at whatever point of the globe he may be and whatever military power, territory, or economy he may possess. — Sergey Biryuzov

Who knows why women aren't - obviously, rock 'n' roll, I keep saying this, but aggressive and in a way that is sexually aggressive, like the singer is the aggressor. And people don't want to see girls in that position. They would rather go after them. — Kristen Stewart

What I mean is that you should never initiate an aggressive act, but if one is initiated against you or another innocent person, you should respond in such a way that ensures that the aggressor is the one who regrets the encounter. — Abraham Thornton

No complaints. The kid is back in the saddle," Jackson said, sitting down. "You should have been up in the Tomcat with me last week. Oh, man, I'm finally back in the groove. I was hassling with a guy in an A-4 playing aggressor, and I ruined his day. It was so fine." He grinned like a lion surveying a herd of crippled antelope. "I'm ready!" "When — Tom Clancy

Alexandros points to the bronze sculpture of Socrates. "His society didn't collapse because of an outside aggressor. It collapsed from within, from the complete breakdown of communication between citizens, and the breakdown of loving sentiment for one another. They ganged up and got rid of Socrates because he was an uncomfortable reminder of the glory days of ancient Athens, when /demokratia/--'people power'--reigned and citizens worked toward a greater good. He epitomized the fact that you're meant to stay open to all views, to all human experiences, because that's how you deepen your love for people and of wisdom. That amazing man sacrificed his life in the name of classic Athenian values of excellence and honor and compassion, so one day they might live on. And they did, here in America, for more than two centuries. I'm worried my beloved America is becoming as loveless as ancient Athens in its days of decline. — Christopher Phillips

By 1938, Eleanor Roosevelt was so angry at FDR's policies, she writes a book called This Troubled World. And it is actually a point-by-point rebuttal of her husband's foreign policy. We need collective security. We need a World Court. We need something like the League of Nations. We need to work together to fight fascism. We need embargoes against aggressor nations, and we need to name aggressor nations. All of which is a direct contradiction of FDR's policies. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

At the U.N., any nation that fights back is censored as an "aggressor." — Sam Levenson

In the clashes between ignorance and intelligence, ignorance is generally the aggressor. — Paul Harris

The second is that the American people tend to oppose whoever they see as the aggressor in the Culture Wars - whoever they see as trying to intrusively impose their values on other people and bullying everyone who disagrees. — Yuval Levin

I had learned that you should always shout louder than your aggressor. — Marjane Satrapi

So the world is again faced with the problem of armed aggression.
Powerful dictatorships are attacking an exposed, but free, area.

What should we do?

Shall we take the position that, submitting to threat, it is better to
surrender pieces of free territory in the hope that this will satisfy
the appetite of the aggressor and we shall have peace? — Dwight D. Eisenhower

While things on the surface seem more quiet than at any time since last summer, I do not like the maintenance of what amounts to almost full mobilization in aggressor countries. Surely they cannot afford it and if they had any definite policy of trying to work out economic salvation (except by arms) they would be showing some signs of cutting military expenditures. — Franklin D. Roosevelt